The BJP received Rs 200 crore on a single day, from a single entity in January 2022, just months before the assembly elections in 5 states. As per the contents of the sealed envelopes received by political parties and uploaded by the Election Commission of India (ECI) on 17 March, the BJP has not revealed the names of the donors, but has mentioned the date of the bond and the city of the firm which donated the bond. On 5 January 2022, 200 bonds worth Rs 1 crore each were purchased in Mumbai, which were donated to the BJP.
The Quint studied the documents and found that the only Mumbai firm which bought electoral bonds over worth Rs 200 crore on the same date (5 January 2022) was Qwik Supply Chain Private Limited, a Reliance linked firm.
Screenshot of the BJP's electoral bonds data released by the ECI.
Other Dates Of Donation
As per the list of electoral bonds published by the SBI last week, while other companies had also bought electoral bonds on 5 January 2022, there was none which had bought electoral bonds worth over Rs 200 crore. Moreover, there were two other Mumbai firms which bought electoral bonds on 5 January 2022—Scaffold Properties and Modern Road Makers—but the value of their bonds was just Rs 7 Crore and Rs 25 Crore respectively.
Qwik Supply Chain was the only Mumbai firm that bought electoral bonds worth Rupees 225 crore on that date.
Besides this significant amount, Qwik Supply Chain also bought electoral bonds worth Rupees 10 crore on 10 January. BJP's list shows an entry of the same amount from a Mumbai firm on that date. However, this could also be a donation from another firm that donated the same amount. Thus it cannot be said with certainty that this Rs 10 crore is also from Qwik Supply Chain.
The Quint had earlier reported that Qwik Supply Chain—a Reliance linked company—had bought electoral bonds a total of three times, and each time was prior to an assembly election. The second time the firm bought electoral bonds of a significant value was 11 November 2022, worth Rs 125 crore. Incidentally, BJP’s records also show a bond bought on the same day of the exact same amount, from a Mumbai firm. On that date, no other company bought electoral bonds worth Rs 125 crore.
Qwik also donated Rs 50 crore on 17 November 2023. However, the BJP’s data only shows amounts till September 2023 so we cannot confirm which party this went to.
How Is Qwik Related To Reliance?
Qwik Supply Chain, which is a manufacturer of warehouses and storage units, has three directors – Tapas Mitra, Vipun Pranlal Mehta, and Sridhar Titti –- and one key management personnel, Anushree Bhargava. The longest-serving director is Tapas Mitra who was appointed on November 17, 2014 and has directorships in 25 other companies, including Reliance Eros Productions LLP, Reliance Tankages Private Limited, Reliance Group Support Service Private Limited, Reliance Fire Brigade Service Private Limited, Jamnagar Kandla Pipeline Company and several others. Some of these firms further share addresses with other Reliance firms-- Reliance Paging Private Limited, Jamnagar Ratlam Pipeline Private Limited, Reliance Tankages Private Limited and Reliance Oil and Petroleum Private Limited.
The Qwik Supply Chain’s registered address is at Navi Mumbai’s Dhirubhai Ambani Knowledge City (DAKC).
The Quint reached out to Qwik Supply Chain via email. The report will be updated if and when there is a response. Last week, in response to news agency PTI, Reliance had said: "Qwik Supply Chain Pvt Ltd is not a subsidiary of any Reliance entity.”
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